The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Maharashtra government on a plea claiming that tigress Avni, shot dead by a civilian hunter at Ralegaon in November 2018, was not a man-eater.
A bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde and comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian decided to examine a petition by activist Sangeeta Dogra.
The petitioner claimed that human remains were not found in the autopsy of the animal. The court, therefore, asked if it meant the hunters were illegally rewarded for killing her. There were celebrations after death. The court sought a response from the Maharashtra government and its forest authorities on Dogra's petition.
Avni, the tigress, was said to have killed 13 villagers. She was shot dead near Borati village in Yavatmal in November 2018 by a team of Forest Department officials and civilian hunter Asgar Ali.
The incident triggered outrage among wildlife activists, who alleged that no efforts were made to tranquillise Avni and called it “murder in cold blood”.
(Published 10 February 2021, 07:49 IST)
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